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Posted Dec. 11, 2009 7:56 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
Atul Gawande is the Malcolm Gladwell of medical and ethical writing, with one big difference: Gawande is not just a cultural observer who tells great stories; instead he is a practicing surgeon and professor at Harvard Medical School and, as a true insider who happens to be a very talented writer for The New Yorker, his work is precise and detailed while also elegant and arresting. The Checklist Manifesto is the author’s third book and he continues along the same theme of his previous works by revealing flaws in medical care and pondering larger ethical dilemmas that can contribute to the loss of life.
In my favorite of Gawande’s previous books, Better, the author tackles the complicated issues and thought that derives from a very simple concept—getting better, for both the patient and the medical practitioner. In The Checklist Manifesto, Gawande’s focus is the lowly checklist. With the incredible amount of complex data and information medical professionals are currently inundated with, they need help breaking down and remembering the small things.
Gawande opens Chapter 1 with a story about a young girl who fell through the ice and was underwater for 30 minutes. A small, local Austrian hospital saved her life because they were experienced in dealing with avalanche victims and had created a checklist they followed during just such situations. Later, in another story that moves beyond the medical profession, Gawande harkens back to 1935 when Boeing demoed their latest aircraft for the government. It crashed, and the investigation showed that the Boeing plane was “too much airplane for one man to fly.” The pilot who died had forgotten a simple procedure before takeoff. Boeing, who almost went bankrupt because of the crash, was saved by a group of test pilots who got together and created a checklist that pilots would follow. That Boeing aircraft would be retested, passed, and become the Boeing B-17 which would go on to fly 1.8 million miles without another accident. The author concludes that:
[C]hecklists seem able to defend anyone, even the experienced, against failure in many more tasks than we realized. They provide a kind of cognitive net. They catch mental flaws inherent in all of us—flaws of memory and attention and thoroughness. And because they do, they raise wide, unexpected possibilities.
Ultimately, checklists are about consistency, about preparing in times of calm a strategy to handle emergencies.
As with his previous books, in The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande asks of professionals one key thing: to be humble enough to admit one’s own humanity and take simple steps to prevent simple errors that are all too often very costly. And perhaps what is most admirable about Gawande is that he does not leave himself out of this request, admitting to his own mistakes and allowing us a glimpse at his own fallibility and that very humility that is needed to improve ourselves.
Posted Dec. 11, 2009 4:16 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
When companies buckle down and tighten their belts during rough economic times, there is usually a meeting of the higher-ups to discuss how to get more out of employees. In this meeting, perhaps a brilliant incentive program is developed that dictates that if the crew can increase productivity 20%, they will get a 20% bonus. Success is all but guaranteed, right? Now all the company has to do is sit back and watch the numbers rise.
In his new book, Drive, Dan Pink presents study after study that proves that “if, then” bonus programs fail to increase anything except failure. This “reward-and-punishment” system—Pink calls it Motivation 2.0—is one that may have worked during the factory era but, as all things do, times have changed. Currently, Pink suggests, the laws of behavioral economics have expanded to include intrinsic motivation, or Motivation 3.0. Motivation 3.0 is the reason Wikipedia and Firefox, and all other open source systems, exist and flourish. It is Motivation 3.0 that has driven the creation of products and services that have been produced and maintained by people who work on them because they like to do the work, not because they are getting bonuses—or even paid—for their labor.
The aforementioned treatise on motivation is the first third of this masterly written book. Part Two deals with the three elements that can actually affect results when trying to implement this new kind of motivation within an organization—or tap into it personally. We, as workers, strive for autonomy—to be self-directed. We also are drawn to mastery—an urge to get better at what we do. And, finally, we desire purpose—to be part of something larger than ourselves.
Though this entire book offers terrific insights for managers and workers alike, Part Three is the real treasure. Pink calls it the “Type I Toolkit” and it truly is the ultimate resource to help you get motivated or improve focus in an organization. Within it, he offers useful advice to parents and educators, and presents a reading list of 15 important books to study and a discussion guide with conversation starters to get the dialogue going.
Pink taps into a crucial aspect of work production in this book, using a fine balance of academic research and enticing storytelling to engage and educate readers. I have been a fan of Dan Pink’s from the beginning, and I think this is his best book yet.
Posted Dec. 10, 2009 8:05 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
I recently stumbled upon one of those rare books that made me snap to attention. It came to us as a nondescript advance copy from a publisher not known as a heavy-hitter in the business book world, and was authored by an anthropologist. Not the typical recipe for success, but in Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation, Grant McCracken offers a fresh take on the impact of culture on the corporation.
McCracken makes the point quickly and persuasively that corporations must let go of the belief that only the genius of big corporate gurus—such as Steve Jobs, Martha Stewart, and Richard Branson—can zero in on culture, even though they almost seem to dictate it. Gurus only appear to be indispensible, he argues, using Steve Jobs and Apple as an example: “As long as culture is ignored by business schools, C-suites, big brands, and consulting houses, Jobs looks great. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king (even in sneakers, jeans, and black turtlenecks).” Today’s “Corporations live or die by their connection to culture,” McCracken asserts, and in a perfect world, businesses would not need to rely on finding gurus. Instead, they would have an expert and highly professionalized Corporate Culture Officer (CCO) to supply cultural intelligence.
McCracken is an astute observer of human behavior and an entertaining storyteller, and his book offers ample examples of people who take on the role of CCO and what can be learned from their experiences. He tells the story of Lance Jensen of Volkswagon who saw that culture wasn't caught in a downward cycle, and believed that cultural intelligence encouraged smarter viewers and vice versa. With that, the famous “Pink Moon” and “Synchronicity” commercials were born. McCracken also shares the success stories of A.G. Lafley at Procter & Gamble, Chris Albrecht at HBO and Dan Wieden for Nike, and makes a convincing point that by investing their time into understanding the culture, these creative folks did not waste time creating gimmicks, stunts or tricks to capture audiences attention. McCracken then moves into a dissection of “Philistines”—the enemies of culture, those who watch the bottom line instead of the world around them—and how to deal with resistance to culture-based ideas. He wraps up the book nicely with a concrete toolkit for the budding CCO.
Grant McCracken gives readers a perfect blend of popular and more obscure cultural trends, great storytelling, and practical application, and in the process makes a strong case that he is this generation’s Chief Culture Officer.
